Everybody wants to be a millionaire these days. For some reason this seems to be the magic number that everyone says would solve their financial problems and make them wealthy.

Articles have been written and polls taken about how much it would really take consider yourself rich. It’s interesting to see the wide variety of answers that people give.

Some say that they’d be rich if they only had a couple hundred thousand dollars. Others say that a million dollars isn’t what it used to be. Inflation has eaten away at purchasing power so they’d need at least five million dollars to consider themselves wealthy.

All this is well and good, but as far as I’m concerned it’s nothing more than a mental exercise with very little practicality. I’m also not convinced that a certain amount would ever be “enough”. People always want what they don’t have.

I don’t really understand why all the focus is on a specific dollar amount. I’m less concerned with a specific amount or “nest egg” and more concerned with a stable monthly cash flow.

Your monthly cash flow is what determines your standard of living, not what balance you have in your bank account.

If you still want to focus on a specific amount, first decide what amount of income you want to have monthly. Then devise your strategy for providing this income, and lastly figure out what amount it’s going to take.

Say you want to retire on $5000 a month. If your strategy is to live off of income from fixed income investments such as bonds that pay about 6%, you’ll need to have exactly one million dollars invested.

If you choose to use rental real estate as your strategy, you’ll need 5 houses that produce $1,000 each or an apartment complex that will do the same. In order to get this amount, your houses might cost about $150,000 each. This would mean you’d need to own about $750,000 worth of real estate.

Not every strategy is right for everyone, but I want to make clear that it’s more important to figure out your investment strategy for producing cash flow than it is to worry about a specific dollar amount.

I don’t understand why some people make such a big deal about paying a tip at a restaurant. They don’t understand why they should pay an extra tip when the employer gets away with paying less than the minimum wage. Even if they believe the service was less than adequate, they don’t want to be viewed as being cheap. If the service was exceptional, how can they make it known since they’re already required to pay a tip?

Personally, I don’t really sympathize with any of these reasons. I try not to fall into the “poor me” and “it’s not fair” traps.

First of all, no one is making you go out to a restaurant. You’re also fully aware that tips are the norm. If you don’t want to pay the tip, then don’t go there in the first place.

If you think that you shouldn’t be responsible for subsidizing the servers salary, that the employer should just pay them more, understand that this cost would just be passed along to you as the consumer anyway. The restaurant business is very competitive and the margins are pretty slim as it is. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that the restaurants would just somehow absorb the cost.

I’m also not a big fan of trying to calculate an appropriate tip based on an evaluation of the service. Sure their are times when the service is less than desirable, but have you ever tried to put yourself in their shoes? Honestly, you’ve seen some of the irritating customers that servers sometimes have to put up with as well. We also don’t know what’s going on in their lives and it may just have been a bad day for them.

For those of you who are really concerned with the tipping issue, I’m going to give you a tip. The word TIP is an acronym that stands for “To Insure Promptness”. Next time you go out, give your server a tip up front. If they look at you quizzical, simply explain to them what the acronym means. You’ll be pleasantly surprised with the level of your service partly because you’ve treated them right, and also because you’ve given them something to live up to.

Complaining isn’t really going to get us anywhere. Think of ways to turn the situation in your favor. If you’re still completely against the whole tipping thing, like I said earlier, no one’s forcing your hand.

So many people dream of someday becoming rich. If you look at how many people actually end up achieving this goal, you’ll notice a huge disparity between the two. So what keeps so many from becoming rich and making more money? Here are 4 reasons:

1. You’re Lazy.

Honestly, how much time do you waste during a day? Everyone has the same amount of time during the week, but some tend to use their time more wisely than others. How long do you sleep? What are your favorite TV shows?

2. You’re Afraid.

Of course you are. You’re in your comfort zone. You’re scared of losing what money you do have. Diversification is your mantra along with loss avoidance. You’re afraid of looking stupid or foolish. You’re afraid of failing and being viewed as a failure. You read books on business and investing but are afraid to learn from mistakes.

3. You give up.

I could say you give up to easily, but the fact that you give up at all is telling. If one investment or business doesn’t work out, you blame the investment or business instead of a lack of understanding. All successful people fail, but what sets them apart is that they’re persistent failures.

4. You doubt.

If you think you can’t, you’re right. Instead of trying to learn about something new, you’ll write it off as risky. Worst of all, you doubt yourself and your own abilities. How do you really expect to succeed if you don’t even think you can.

Maybe you’ve seen yourself in some of these descriptions. Identify those areas and work towards improving yourself. I still have a lot of work to do, but I’m confident that one day I’ll succeed.

A few minutes ago there was a knock on the door. In this day and age, it’s very rare that someone you know just comes over and knocks on your door. Anyone I know would’ve called me on my cell phone.

It was a guy from TruGreen lawn care who had left something on the door earlier in the day. Apparently our next door neighbor is already a customer and we both have a couple dandelions. Not exactly a subject that’s going to keep up at night.

I told him that I wasn’t interested but he continued his spiel saying that he wasn’t going to let me off that easily. He obviously didn’t know who he was speaking to. I can’t really blame him though; I didn’t know who I was speaking to either.

He then asked me what I put down on the lawn to try and get rid of them. That was an easy one. Nothing. I mow the lawn with a mulching blade so I don’t have to bag any of the clippings. I edge the lawn and weedeat around everything else so it looks all nice and groomed. I’m not really concerned with a couple of weeds out there that are just going to come back again either later in the season or next year.

He wasn’t all too impressed with my answer, but I can’t say that I share his same passion for weed elimination. When I was younger, my older brother and I had a landscaping business. I love the look of a nice lawn, but it’s not something that I’m willing to pay for especially when it would be a recurring cost.

I will give him props though for not just giving up with the first “no”. It’s just not worth it to me right now. We’ve only lived in the house for about 8 months and I’m not exactly looking to sell it or rent it out anytime soon. The yard is also about as small as they come. It’s probably only about 10′ by 10′.

So why am I going on about this? This is just one example of the many daily things that compete for our money. Too many people lack the nerve to just say no. You don’t have to buy something just because a salesman is nice or you want to just get rid of him.

I also make it a point not to buy anything that I’m not looking for. I didn’t wake up today thinking that I need to do something about those 3 dandelions in the front yard. So why should I impulsively sign on with a lawn care company?

Remember it’s your money. And if you want to be rich, you have to take control of it.

I took my wife out to dinner tonight. For those of you who’ve read Restaurant lifestyle…, this might seem out of character for me. Rest assured, however, I didn’t pay full price. I used one of my favorite sites, Restaurant.com to get a discounted gift certificate.

As you may know, I live in north St. Louis, a very cool town with a lot of culture and personality. There’s a lot to do and see, and my wife and I want to get more acquainted with the city where we live. The cheapest way to be a tourist is to be one in your own home town.

Tonight we drove downtown past the arch to an area of town known as Soulard. We went to a place known as Fat Toney’s BBQ. The food was fantastic and it has a great cozy atmosphere. It was different than your typical chain restaurant. The staff was very friendly and treated us like they’ve known us for years.

While we were there, a bum walked in and asked us to let him know if we had any left over food when we were done. I didn’t really like this idea because I really liked the food and planned on finishing everything. Plus, if he’s hungry he’d probably be better off with a full meal.

After a while, the lady at the cashier came out and talked to us and told us that she was going to have to get rid of the bum sitting on the curb outside. Before she could go out and talk to him, though, I told her that I’d like to buy him a plate of food. All it would have cost me was about $8. The cashier didn’t want me to have to buy him the food so she went back and made him a plate to go, on the house.

On our way out, I went and gave a two dollar bill to both of the people working there. The food and the service were great. I’m also glad we were able to help someone out.

The point I’m making here is that generosity is contagious and there are plenty of opportunities to help others if you’ll look around you. I was more than willing to buy the food for him, but I could tell that in the end the cashier was glad she helped someone out.

If you like what you’re reading, Subscribe to Fiscal Musings.

If you don’t, let me know how I can improve the site to make it better for everyone.

Usually it’s pretty quiet at work. You or course have the usual office noises. The constant typing, phones ringing, the water fountain going on, the occasional hallway conversation.

Something really stuck out today though. Just down the hall from my desk a lady started venting about this and that. She was upset about certain changes being made and whatnot (I didn’t exactly catch everything being said).

what got my attention was the sudden and constant barrage of profanity. It sounded like we were in the middle of a bar fight. I can’t imagine that the parties involved thought they were actually having a private conversation. Even as people were passing by this lady didn’t let up.

I wouldn’t say I’m sheltered by any means, but it just struck me as so out of place and uncalled for.

In my opinion, when you adopt this crass behaviour in business and the workplace, you lose a certain amount of professional credibility. There are fewer individuals that will be willing to work with you and for you.

I understand that there are different personality types and that people have different ways of expressing themselves. There are also those who get ahead and those who don’t. I’ll leave it up to you to decide if there’s a correlation or not.

As for me and as much as I may want to, I’ll probably never go off on someone in the hallway. It did, however, add an interesting spark to the day and give me something to write about.

Every so often I need to go to the bank to make a deposit, and while I’m there I’ll pull out some cash to have on hand. I much prefer to use a credit card for most purchases because it creates a nice record and I don’t have to mess with small coins, but sometimes cash can be really handy.

When I’m at the bank, though, I make a special request. I always ask the teller for as many two dollar bills as they’ve got. I do this for a number of reasons.

First of all, there’s nothing special about the two dollar bill really. It’s still only worth two dollars and they’re still printing new ones. They’re just not that popular and most automated machines don’t take them. Other than that, they don’t work any different than other denominations.

It’s also increasingly rare that something only costs a dollar these days. Unless you live in one of those few states that doesn’t charge a sales tax, it’s always $1.07 or something similar. As I mentioned before, I don’t like to carry change so I’m always using at least $2 at a time anyway.

My wife has also mentioned that she finds them harder to part with than other bills, and that’s never a bad thing.

It’s also a great conversation starter. I have yet to hand over a two dollar bill without getting some sort of reaction just because they’re a little different. It breaks people out of their daily routine and they’ll stop and talk to you for a while. You never know who you’ll meet or what you’ll gain by talking to someone.

So if I’ve sparked some interest in the two dollar bill for you, go ahead and grab a few from the bank. You’ll find how fun it is to give them out.